Wildfires rolling across the African savannah. A hunter calling in an elk on a mountain meadow. Mongolian herders gathering their goats for the night. Reindeer herds grazing on the arctic tundra. These are all scenes that could be happening somewhere “out there” in the world’s arid wild lands, also known as rangelands.

Vast natural landscapes in the form of grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, and deserts: rangelands are the wild open spaces that cover about half of the earth’s land. Rangelands are known by many names across the globe including prairies, shrublands, deserts, woodlands, savannas, chaparral, steppe, and tundra.